Everything about Telegony totally explained
The
Telegony (
Greek: Τηλεγόνεια
Telegoneia;
Latin:
Telegonia) is a lost
ancient Greek epic poem about
Telegonus, son of
Odysseus by
Circe. His name ("born far away") is indicative of his birth on
Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of
Ithaca. It was part of the
Epic Cycle of poems that recounted the myths not only of the
Trojan War but also of the events that led up to and followed the war. The story of the
Telegony comes chronologically after that of the
Odyssey, and is the final episode in the Epic Cycle. The poem was sometimes attributed in
Antiquity to
Cinaethon of Sparta, but in one source it's said to have been stolen from
Musaeus by Eugamon or
Eugammon of Cyrene (see
Cyclic poets). The poem comprised two books of verse in
dactylic hexameter.
Title
In
Antiquity the
Telegony may have also been known as the
Thesprotis (Greek: Θεσπρωτίς), which is referred to once by
Pausanias in the second century CE; alternatively, the
Thesprotis may have been a name for the first book of the
Telegony, which is set in
Thesprotia. Such naming of isolated episodes within a larger epic was common practice for the ancient readers of the
Homeric epics.
A third possibility is that there was a wholly separate epic called the
Thesprotis; and yet a fourth possibility is that the
Telegony and
Thesprotis were two separate poems that were at some stage compiled into a single
Telegony. Most scholars at present tend to regard the third and fourth possibilities as unlikely, or at least worthless
hypotheses, since neither possibility is demonstrable or falsifiable.
Date
The date of composition of the
Telegony is uncertain.
Cyrene, the native city of Eugammon, the purported author, was founded in
631 BCE; but the narrative details may have existed prior to Eugammon's version, perhaps even in the
oral tradition. There is a distinct possibility that the author of the
Odyssey knew at least some version of the
Telegony story (the Thesprotian episode and Telegonos' unusual spear in the
Telegony may have been based on
Tiresias' prophecy in
Odyssey book 11; but it's also possible that the
Odyssey poet used the Telegonus story as a basis for Teiresias' prophecy). Certainly Eugammon's poem is most likely to have been composed in the
6th century BCE.
Content
The
Telegony comprises two distinct episodes:
Odysseus' voyage to
Thesprotia, and the story of
Telegonus. Probably each of the two books of the
Telegony related one of these episodes. In current critical editions only two lines of the poem's original text survive. For its storyline we're dependent primarily on a summary of the Telegonus myth in Proclus'
Chrestomathy. The poem opens after the events depicted in the
Odyssey. According to Proclus' summary, the
Telegony opens with the burial of
Penelope's suitors. Odysseus makes sacrifices to the
Nymphs. He makes a voyage to
Elis, where he visits an otherwise unknown figure
Polyxenos, who gives him a bowl depicting the story of
Trophonius. Odysseus returns to Ithaca and then travels to
Thesprotia, presumably to make the sacrifices commanded by
Tiresias in
Odyssey 11. There he weds the Thesprotian queen
Kallidike, who bears him a son,
Polypoites. Odysseus fights for the Thesprotians in a war against the neighbouring
Brygoi; the gods participate in the war,
Ares routing Odysseus and the Thesprotians, countered by
Athena, ever Odysseus' patron;
Apollo intervenes between the battling gods. However,
Kallidike is killed in the war, Polypoetes succeeds to the kingdom and Odysseus returns to Ithaca.
Meanwhile, it transpires that
Circe, with whom Odysseus had an affair for a year in the
Odyssey (books 10-12), has born his son,
Telegonus (Τηλέγονος, "born far away"). He grows up living with Circe on the island of
Aeaea. On the goddess
Athena's advice Circe tells him the name of his father. In a detail inserted into the account in pseudo-
Apollodorus, Epitome of the
Bibliotheke she gives him a supernatural spear to defend himself which is tipped with the sting of a poisonous stingray and was made by the god Hephaestus. A storm forces Telegonus onto Ithaca without his realising where he is. As is customary for Homeric heroes in unfriendly land, he commits piracy, and unwittingly begins stealing Odysseus' cattle. Odysseus comes to defend his property. During the ensuing fight, Telegonus kills Odysseus with his unusual spear, thereby partially fulfilling Tiresias' prophecy in
Odyssey 11 that death would come to Odysseus "out of the sea" (for example the poison of the ray). (In another respect, however, Odysseus' death contradicts the prophecy of Tiresias, who predicted (
Od. 11.135) that a "gentle death" would come to Odysseus "in sleek old age") As Odysseus lies dying, he and Telegonus recognise one another, and Telegonus laments his mistake. Telegonus brings his father's corpse,
Penelope, and Odysseus' other son
Telemachus, back to
Aeaea, where Odysseus is buried and Circe makes the others immortal. Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus marries Circe.
Latin inventions
The 1st-century AD Roman fabulist
Hyginus differs from Proclus in adding a few details. First, it's both Odysseus and Telemachus who engage Telegonus in combat. Hyginus then adds that Odysseus had received an oracle to beware his son. Finally, Hyginus attributes to Telegonus a son named
Italus, the eponymous founder of Italy; and to Telemachus he attributes a son named
Latinus, whose name was given to the Latin language.
Numerous Latin poets make Telegonus the founder of
Praeneste, an important
Etruscan fortified high place and sacred site.
Dante's invention
In
Dante's
Divine Comedy, in the eighth
bolgia of the Inferno, Dante and his guide meet Ulisse among the false counsellors, and receive a variant accounting of his death "from the sea" in a five-month journey beyond the
Pillars of Hercules that has ended in a whirlpool drowning as the mariners approach the mountain of Purgatory. No Greek source was available to Dante, only the Latin recensions of
Dictys and Dares.
Among the plethora of
operas based on the myths of Odysseus and those around him, there's but one based on Telegonus,
Carlo Luigi Grua's
Telegone (premiered in Düsseldorf, 1697) of which an aria "Dia le mosse a miei contenti" may be noted. Divine intervention, a tragic death and multiple weddings at the end all assorted easily with the conventions of
opera seria.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Telegony'.
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